


Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Yearning RAs

by sevenimpossiblethings



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Asexual Character, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-07-28 18:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7651363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenimpossiblethings/pseuds/sevenimpossiblethings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur and Eames, co-RAs. Some photography, some milkshakes, some cuddles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my wonderful beta, Castillon02, for her ever-helpful suggestions and careful eye. Special thanks also to kenopsia and M.D. for helping me brainstorm Arthur and Eames's interests. 
> 
> The title comes from the most famous lines of Emma Lazarus's poem [The New Colossus](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/46550): "Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." (It wouldn't be a proper college AU without a literary title!)
> 
> Content warnings: There are _very_ brief references to drugs, alcohol, sexual assault, mental health issues, and homophobia, mainly in the context of Arthur's job duties as a resident advisor/assistant.

Arthur knew there was a problem before Orientation was halfway over, the third time he came across the first-floor first-years milling around in the dorm rec room when they were supposed to be elsewhere—in this case, attending the mandatory alcohol awareness talk. (His first-years had complained about this requirement, given that they had all selected to live in sub-free housing and Arthur had already led a dorm-specific meeting on their particular policies, but rules were rules.)

“Where’s Nash?” Arthur asked. He’d just come from dropping off the second-floor first-years at the auditorium and was looking forward to having forty-five minutes to himself.

The twenty or so first-years, nervously fiddling with their lanyards, turned to face him with relief.

“We’re not sure,” one of them said, a boy who was weirdly wearing a college t-shirt for another school. “He told us to meet him here and then never showed up.”

Arthur frowned. “Isn’t it on your schedule, where you’re supposed to be right now?” Nash’s absence aside, surely a group of college first-years should be able to read a schedule and get themselves somewhere independently. If they couldn’t even handle Orientation, how in the world were they going to handle college itself?

“We never got the updated schedule. Like, he mentioned there was one, but that’s all,” said another boy, referring to the new schedule Arthur had given to his group the previous evening, after some mix-up with the grounds crew required the RAs to rearrange the order of three talks (time management, finding an on-campus job, and responsible alcohol use) and change the location of two dinners.

“And he keeps forgetting to give us maps,” said a girl who was sitting next to the boy wearing another college’s logo.

“I see,” said Arthur. “Well, you’re supposed to be at the alcohol talk right now, so let’s get going. I’ll give you the part you’re missing as we walk, minus the bad jokes.”

The RAs had been on campus for two weeks before Orientation started for training—training that Arthur had already done the previous summer, before his first semester as an RA. Arthur could probably recite the alcohol talk while drunk. 

“Do you have to?” asked someone as they exited the dorm.

Arthur lifted an eyebrow as he, walking backwards, turned to face the group. “Yes.”

The problem with first-years, Arthur thought, was that you had about five days to teach them how to be college students. You couldn’t expect that they’d learned anything real in high school, so you had to be prepared to teach them about the heteropatriarchy and consent culture and how not to microaggress their classmates. In less than a week. While they were trying to find friends and adjust to being away from home and whatever other baggage they were bringing from their previous lives.

After Arthur dropped them off at the auditorium, he texted Nash ( _Everything good? Just took your group to the alcohol talk._ ). And then spent the remainder of his break procuring extra copies of the updated Orientation schedule and campus maps. Then he went back to the auditorium, collected both groups (still no word from Nash), and settled them into an over-large circle on the quad to discuss their questions about the campus’s alcohol policy.

Nash maintained his radio silence until well after Arthur had walked the whole group over to the President’s house for the welcome BBQ.

 

And on it went.

RAs were required to have three to four “office hours” a week, which basically meant that Arthur did homework with his door open while occasionally being asked to solve a roommate disagreement or set up an appointment at the campus health center for people who got nervous on the phone.

(People always asked him for office hour horror stories, but office hour issues tended not to be that bad… What was hard was trying to reach the people who didn’t come to office hours, but locked themselves in their rooms and thought they had to struggle through depression and homesickness and all the rest on their own. What was hard was the two or three weekend nights a month when he was on call for all of west campus, when the RA phone received a student’s first call after an assault, when his mandated reporter training was called into use.)

At first, when the first-floor students came to his office hours, Arthur didn’t think much of it: maybe they had club meetings during Nash’s hours; maybe they were in the closet and wanted to quietly see what being out at college was like, wanted to ogle the rotating pictures of out LGBT celebrities pinned to Arthur’s corkboard and establish a rapport by way of dorm policies before asking him about the Queer Resource Center. But after he started getting first-floor maintenance requests—the shower that appeared to not be connected to the hot water, the ants in the kitchen—he finally told the residents of Room 140 (who were there about a cracked windowpane that they insisted wasn’t their fault), “I’m happy to help, but you should really be talking to Nash about these things.”

The Room 140 residents exchanged a glance.

“What?” said Arthur, wary and already weary.

“Well,” said Roommate #1, “he never replies to emails. We’ve been trying to get him to ask maintenance about the window since the second day of Orientation.”

(So maybe the window really wasn’t their fault.)

“And he’s never in during his posted office hours,” added the second. “He’s never here at all.”

Arthur suppressed a groan. “Okay, thanks for letting me know. I’ll email maintenance about the window… and talk to Nash.”

 

It took Arthur—Arthur, who prided himself on his good relationships with both the Dean of Students and the registrar’s office, and therefore his access to people’s academic schedules—two full days to track down Nash and corner him for a conversation.

A fruitless conversation, apparently, because the condoms in the zip lock bag he kept tacked to his RA bulletin board were disappearing at an alarming rate, much faster than they’d been used last fall, and Arthur thought it unlikely his current residents were just that much hornier and less well-stocked with supplies for engaging in safe sex. (Sure enough, when he checked Nash’s bulletin board, the condom bag was completely empty, and a passing student remarked, “Oh, my girlfriend always just gets them from the guy upstairs, if you need one.”)

Arthur emailed the Hall Director, Cobb, who promised to speak with Nash.

This, too, was evidently a futile talk, because the first-floor residents kept showing up at his door.

Arthur sent a second email to Cobb when the first-floor first-years began complaining that the hallway outside of Nash’s room smelled of pot, and, Christ, Arthur didn’t care what Nash got up to on his own time, in private, but Nash was supposed to be setting an example and smoking _anything_ was definitely not allowed in the dorms. Never mind the fact that they lived in the sub-free dorm. While occasionally sophomores opted to live there because there was a better chance of a single (or at least a larger double), a lot of people chose sub-free housing for important reasons (see: Ariadne and her alcoholic father), and it was up to the RAs—both of them—to maintain the sanctity of the space the residents had been promised.

 

Two and a half weeks into the semester, Arthur emailed Cobb to inform him that he would be at Cobb’s office hours the next day to discuss the situation.

“This has gone on long enough,” Ariadne agreed from her spot on Arthur’s floor, where she was constructing a model for her environmental design class. “You can’t be the RA for the entire dorm, that’s insane. Once everyone starts being homesick and freaking out about their first midterm results, you’ll never get anything done.”

 

When Arthur entered Cobb’s office the next day, however, it wasn’t Cobb waiting for him behind the desk: instead, it was Saito, Associate Dean of Students and Director of Residential Life.

“Hello,” said Arthur, uncertain. “I’m supposed to be meeting with Mr. Cobb about something right now.”

Saito regarded him impassively for a moment, then waved a hand to indicate Arthur should sit. “I am aware of your scheduled meeting with Mr. Cobb. This seemed simpler.”

Arthur didn’t know how to respond to that, so he sat.

Saito folded his hands together on top of the desk. “I understand that you have been having problems with your co-RA.”

“Yes,” said Arthur. He refused to feel bad about ratting on another student: Nash was making Arthur do two people’s work, and that wasn’t fair.

“The situation has been taken care of,” said Saito.

Arthur blinked. What did that even mean? Calling Nash in for another conversation, albeit with Saito rather than Cobb?

“Nash has been relieved of his RA duties and his replacement will be moving into his room this weekend. I trust that it will not be too much of a burden to be the sole RA for the next few days?”

“Yes – er, no, that’s fine,” said Arthur.

_That’s unexpected_ , he wanted to say.

Saito nodded once, decisively. “Eames was an RA last spring, so I am waiving most of the re-training.”

Last spring, Arthur had been abroad in Paris, but –

Eames.

Eames must have been abroad last fall, because he hadn’t attended summer training the year before, either.

_Eames_. 

Eames was one of those mythical figures on campus that Arthur had heard of but never actually met. Eames had single-handedly raised attendance by 300 percent (minimum) at rugby matches their first two years, when he’d been on the team. Eames was the lead in at least one theater production per term, starting his very first semester, when he’d written and starred in a one-man show that everyone in the audience had declared to be Tony-worthy, to say the least.

Arthur had never attended a college sporting event, and he’d never attended a performance without knowing at least one actor or crewmember; somehow, there was no overlap between the theater people he knew and the theater people Eames worked with. Generally, Arthur’s theater acquaintance was the set designer, because Arthur was an architecture major and didn’t know anyone outside of the architecture and French departments. Actually, as Ariadne liked to point out, Arthur tried very hard not to know anyone other than her.

“Any questions?” Saito asked.

Arthur was a bit surprised that Eames had agreed to live in a sub-free dorm, but...

“No,” said Arthur. None that Saito was likely to answer, anyway.

“Good. I think you will find Eames to be a more than adequate replacement.”

Arthur thanked Saito and left.

 

On Friday night, there was a knock on his door. Arthur frowned; he didn’t have office hours now, so any resident complaints should be directed to him via email, and Ariadne was already curled into his fuzzy saucer chair, annotating her feminist histories book. In short: no one had any business knocking on his door.

Sighing, Arthur stood from his desk and opened the door.

The person thus revealed could only be Eames.

Surely no one but a rugby/theater mutt could get away with such a hideous shirt.

“Hullo, Arthur,” he purred. Slight British accent, check.

“Hello, Eames.”

“So you’re Cobb’s stick-in-the-mud,” said Eames.

“Excuse me?”

“When they were trying to recruit me, they took pains to describe my future co-RA,” said Eames. “But don’t worry, darling. They forgot I was your replacement in Avery last spring, so I already knew you were the best. The residents missed you terribly.”

“I thought Ashley was replacing me, and you were being placed in Sontag,” said Arthur, deciding to ignore the rest.

“Her boyfriend turned out to be an asshole, but not the kind of asshole you can kick off campus, and she thought this was a better alternative than fighting to get him moved to a different building,” said Eames.

“Oh,” said Arthur. “That was nice of you.”

“Better me than her.” Eames shrugged.

“You’ll do,” said Ariadne, appearing at Arthur’s shoulder.

“Hullo,” said Eames. “Sorry, didn’t see you there.”

“Ariadne, Eames, the new first-floor RA who is actually going to do his job,” said Arthur, raising an eyebrow at Eames. “Eames, Ariadne—”

“I’m the best friend who lives across the hall,” she interrupted.

Eames nodded. There was a pause, but since Eames had been the one to knock on _his_ door, Arthur waited it out. After another moment, Eames dug out a folded piece of paper from his jeans pocket. For the first time, a flash of uncertainty crossed his face.

“So, I, uh, understand if you have something better to do on your Friday night and this doesn’t have to happen right this very moment, but do you think – would you mind sitting down with me some time and walking me through my floor? Just, letting me know who I should be looking out for, which roommates aren’t getting along, that sort of thing? I’m feeling a bit adrift, tossed into this three weeks in.”

Eames had unfolded the paper, and Arthur saw it was a list of the first-floor residents.

Never mind the shock of Nash actually be replaced: this was far more unexpected.

“I’d be happy to,” said Arthur sincerely.

Eames beamed.

“Arthur, invite the poor boy in,” Ariadne scolded.

“Oh,” said both Arthur and Eames.

“I really didn’t mean to interrupt your night, I just wanted to introduce myself,” said Eames.

“You’re not interrupting anything,” said Ariadne, retreating back to her perch on the chair. “We can do our homework tomorrow.”

“Don’t you have somewhere better to be?” Arthur asked. Eames had been on the _rugby team_. Eames was an acting prodigy. Surely there were hoards of people clamoring for his attention.

Eames’s smile tightened. “Just trying to get in the habit of having quiet Friday nights to balance crazy Saturday ones.” He cleared his throat. “I also made the mistake of coming out to some people I apparently shouldn’t have last year. Namely the homophobic half of the rugby team.”

“I understand,” said Arthur, because he really, really did.

“Pan,” Ariadne called from the saucer chair.

“Bi,” said Eames. His shoulders relaxed and he stepped into the room.

Arthur glanced at the seating options. He didn’t want to subject Eames to the hard-backed desk chair, but offering his bed to a near-stranger – well, whatever. Arthur waved a hand toward the bed and pulled the desk chair a bit closer.

“Okay,” said Arthur, taking a deep breath. “The pairs in 100 and 144 are going to ask for roommate reassignments within the next two weeks; no, they haven’t said anything; yes, I’m right. The first-years in 106 need to be persuaded to go to the Writing Center before their Foucault paper is due, unless you’re in the mood to edit mediocre papers on _The History of Sexuality_ , but you should really let the writing tutors earn their paychecks. 156 is having an issue with her econ professor that needs to be taken to the Dean of Faculty. 120 through 140 are all junior or senior singles. Half of them have daddy issues, and I am not making up that statistic…”

The wonder of wonders was this: Eames _stayed_ until Arthur had actually finished going through the entire first floor. He took _notes_.

Who did that? No one did that. _Ariadne_ didn’t do that.

In fact, Ariadne left halfway through the list in order to Skype with a junior friend who was currently studying somewhere in a “stupidly inconvenient time zone, almost as inconvenient as the time difference when you were in Paris, remember how annoying that was, you still owe me for that, by the way.”

“Okay,” said Eames, setting the annotated list aside and leaning forward with his forearms on his thighs, “I have to admit, I have been salivating over that Randy Scott Slavin print since I walked in, but I see your Adam Mørk and I raise you Víctor Enrich.”

If Ariadne were here, she would probably say something like, _Arthur wants to serenade that print with Joni Mitchell songs for the rest of his life_ , but she wasn’t, so Arthur said, “You know photography?”

“Please, half of the well-known architecture photographers these days have done work in London, it’s just navel-gazing. Top-notch postcards while I’m away, you know,” said Eames. “And what’s-his-face—you know, the one who normally does opera houses—did the theatre I was at this summer—”

“Holy shit,” said Arthur, who knew at once the set of photographs to which Eames must be referring. “Tell me _everything_.”

“I can do better than that,” said Eames. “Come down to my room, he took portraits of us all too—”

“He never does portraits any more,” Arthur bleated. “I hate you.”

“—and mine is _signed_ ,” Eames finished triumphantly.

Arthur stood, dropped his key into his pocket, and tugged Eames up from the bed.

“Eager, are we?” Eames asked, even though he had already opened the door.

“When’s the last time you had a conversation with someone who knew of Enrich?” Arthur asked, on the assumption that Eames’s theater crew was too busy bursting into spontaneous sing-a-longs with perfect four-part harmonies to put much thought into contemporary photography.

“Touché,” said Eames.

Arthur wasn’t expecting Eames to let him linger long. Arthur wasn’t expecting to _want_ to linger long, except architectural photography turned into an obscure British podcast Eames listened to, which turned into Arthur explaining his own list of obscure American podcasts Eames should start following immediately, which reminded Arthur that Eames was probably the one person in the dorm yet to be subjected to his passionate defense of both NPR and PBS (a situation that had to be rectified immediately), which led to discussion of the ridiculous sport cable packages required to watch anything, which led to Eames’s enthusiastic explanation of rugby, which then prompted Eames to seriously pontificate on which sport was the best for a) butt-toning purposes for the participants and b) butt-watching purposes for the spectators.

Arthur did not really participate in this latter debate, because, to be honest, he had never really understood people’s apparent interest in a well-toned butt, but he did gather that while Eames was a vigorous defender of rugby as the best sport for butt-watching, Eames allowed that hockey might win in terms of butt-toning. Arthur nodded and _hm_ ed and _mmm_ ed in all the appropriate places, because, yeah, performing some socially expected level of sexual interest was definitely the easiest route. 

Rugby versus hockey butts somehow turned into a comics discussion, which turned into the play Eames was to star in this semester, which turned into analyzing the new trailer for a film they both wanted to see, and somehow it was close to three a.m. before Arthur thought to look at his watch.

“See you around,” he said as he opened Eames’s door.

“Good night, darling,” said Eames.

Arthur grinned all the way upstairs and down the hall to his room. He was still grinning as he crawled into bed a few minutes later.

Just— _Eames_.


	2. Chapter 2

Arthur didn’t know what he was expecting, exactly, but he was _hoping_ that Eames would stop by on Saturday afternoon and ask if they could do homework together, or arrange to get a meal together on Sunday, or just shoot him a Facebook message with a podcast or comic he’d forgotten to mention last night.

Something.

Anything.

But Arthur didn’t even have any more official “that’s what you missed on Glee” sessions with Eames that week. He occasionally passed him in the halls or the rec room, where Eames was usually accompanied by an Indian kid Arthur thought must be a chem major, based on the textbooks, but that was all.

Arthur walked past Eames’s room more than was really necessary, hoping Eames would leave his door open occasionally outside of his office hours, just so Arthur could have a natural excuse to say ‘hi.’ He tried to not to feel disappointed when no such occasion presented itself.

_You can’t force someone to want to be friends with you_ , Arthur reminded himself. _It was a nice night. Let it be._

The next Wednesday night, Arthur propped open his door and settled in with the reading for his French class. Ariadne was at a club meeting, and the two residents he was really worried about (215 and 237) would require pro-active measures on his part to contact, so he thought there was a possibility he could get through the assigned section before closing his door and officially starting his studying time.

Fifteen minutes in, Eames rapped his knuckles on the doorframe and poked his head in.

“Got a minute?” Eames asked.

“It’s office hours, so yes,” said Arthur in an even tone.

Eames shifted a little so he was leaning against the doorframe, blocking most of Arthur’s view into the hallway. It wasn’t a bad trade.

“They’re not coming to my office hours,” Eames said. “And unless everybody was totally fine with the microwave not working for four days, they’re not emailing me their maintenance requests, either.”

Arthur sighed. “Come in, sit,” he said. “I told maintenance about the microwave issue, don’t worry about it.”

“But that’s the point. I’m _supposed_ to worry about it.” As Eames sprawled in the saucer chair, he seemed to shake himself a little, slipping on half a smirk as he continued, “Unless it’s because of your superior cheekbones, in which case, although I am offended, I am empathetic to the plight of the love-struck masses who would seek to acquire your attention by way of maintenance problems.”

“I think they’re just having adjustment issues,” said Arthur diplomatically. “Nash was unreliable, and most of them don’t know you, so they have no way of knowing if you’re going to be equally unreliable, and they’d rather invest their energy in communicating with someone they know is a sure thing.”

“I want my own baby first-years,” Eames whined. “You can’t have them all to yourself.”

“I would like nothing more than for you to have your equal share of the ‘baby first-years,’” Arthur said.

Eames made grabby hands in his direction. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses of stressed-out pre-meds…”

Arthur huffed out a laugh. “You like my Plowden, then?”

“It stands out. It’s your only black-and-white, for one,” said Eames. “Also, it’s a great picture, and your print is really high quality.”

“Are you free tomorrow night?” Arthur blurted.

“Normally I’d say you’re moving a little fast, but I think I could be persuaded to make an exception for—”

“Because I have office hours Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday, and we could do joint office hours tomorrow in the rec room,” Arthur said. “Get people comfortable with you.”

“That’s an _excellent_ idea,” said Eames. “You are a god among men.”

“I’m an RA tired of running this dorm by myself,” said Arthur.

“Aw, babe,” Eames pouted. “You know I’m a sure thing.”

Arthur rolled his eyes.

 

To: [Barnes Hall Residents]

From: Arthur Knight

Subject: Office Hours Tomorrow (Thursday)

Body:

Hello Barnes Hall residents!

As you may have noticed, we have a new first floor RA, Eames, in Room 102. In order to properly welcome him to Barnes, we will be holding joint office hours tomorrow during my regular Thursday office hours (7-9pm) in the rec room. Stop by and introduce yourself!

There will be Trader Joe’s snacks (gluten-free and vegan options available as always).

Best,

Arthur

 

“I helped Claire write to Dean Johnson, Tom and Joe are switching this weekend, so George will be with Joe and Tom with Harrison, and Ashley and Veronica went to the Writing Center together,” Eames said on Thursday night, before Arthur could so much as say “hi” or offer him a peanut butter-filled pretzel.

“Uh,” said Arthur.

“144, 106, 156, done,” said Eames. “For the moment, anyway.”

“Oh!” Arthur stopped re-arranging the boxes of cookies on the coffee table. “That’s great. Thank you.”

“Just doing my job,” said Eames, snagging a pretzel.

“And I appreciate it,” said Arthur dryly.

“The daddy issues group is going to take a bit longer to crack,” said Eames. He settled crossed-legged on the floor next to Arthur. “I would have started this all earlier, but, uh.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “The day after we talked, my mate’s girlfriend broke up with him, so I’ve kind of been glued to his side for the past week and a half, reminding him that he’s a catch and making sure he’s not sleeping in lab, which is a difficult task, considering that Master’s students have twenty-four hour access.”

_The Indian chem guy_ , Arthur thought with relief (and a side of guilt). Eames hadn’t been avoiding him; he’d just been being a good friend to someone he’d known long before Arthur subjected him to his NPR-is-holy rant.

“The daddy issues aren’t going anywhere,” said Arthur. “They’ll wait for your friend to feel better.”

“I realize this isn’t giving you the best impression of my reliability,” Eames said.

“Transition period,” Arthur said. “And you’ve already been ten times more helpful than Nash ever was, so.”

“So… you think this co-RA partnership thing will work out?” Eames asked.

“I’d say so,” said Arthur, as the first-years in 114 entered the rec room and made a beeline toward the cookies.

“Freshman Seminar got you down?” Eames asked them.

“Yeah, but I finally figured out why I hate Prof. Macko so much,” one of the girls replied. She plucked a gluten-free lemon cookie out of the box and held it up speculatively, as if searching for imperfections.

“Why’s that?” Arthur asked.

“Second-wave feminism,” the roommates said in chorus.

Eames turned his head away from the girls, toward Arthur.

“ _Mine_ ,” he mouthed.

_Yeah_ , Arthur thought, this co-RA thing was going to work out just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arthur's Plowden print is [View of Statue of Liberty from Caven Point](http://brbl-zoom.library.yale.edu/viewer/1139386).


	3. Chapter 3

On Friday morning, Arthur returned from the gym to discover a doodle on his whiteboard. The sketch was of Fray, the dining hall closest to their dorm, its lines simplified and rendered bright green under the marker’s thick strokes. Two stick figures (in blue) were standing outside it, helpfully labeled “me” and “you,” with purple arrows pointing to the respective figures. The artist had even used the numerals 1230 to call to mind the flagstone path outside of the building.

Arthur took a picture with his phone—not that he was going to erase the drawing, but sometimes other people felt his whiteboard was entirely public property, as opposed to just mostly public property—and then texted Eames.

**Arthur:** Meet at your room?

**Eames:** [thumbs-up emoji]

**Eames:** … do you like the drawing?

**Arthur:** Your stick figure skills are v. impressive

**Eames:** [frowny-face emoji]

**Arthur:** Yes, I like the drawing. I will write a strongly-worded email to whatever idiot ultimately decides my whiteboard needs to become entirely dedicated to advertising the film festival and erases it in the pursuit of this goal, which ALWAYS HAPPENS.

**Eames:** I shall defend it

**Arthur:** With what? My markers? 

**Eames:** I have a dozen more colors than you. I’ll bring up reinforcements later.

After lunch, Eames picked up a handful of dry erase markers from his room before following Arthur upstairs, where Eames proceeded to draw ramparts and a moat around the sketch. DO NOT ERASE was written in wobbly letters where the water would be, with a tiny alligator peeking through the second ‘O’.

Arthur sat on the hallway floor with his back against the wall, watching Eames work in rapt silence.

Eames was giving him a _castle_.

 

“He drew you a castle,” Ariadne said flatly that night, after they had given up studying but before they surrendered to Netflix. (Eames was at rehearsal.)

“Yes,” Arthur said, and didn’t bother to keep the smile from his face.

“Fuck, you’ve gone and found yourself a _provider_ type. A nester.” Ariadne threw a pen at him. 

Arthur caught it and put it away (it was his pen, anyway).

“We barely know each other,” said Arthur.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Ariadne. “Sometimes you just know.”

“If you’re talking about the guy you had sex with at the Model UN conference after making _eye contact_ ,” began Arthur, who would readily admit to his mystification in the face of Ariadne’s sex life, but supported her quest for orgasms from the sidelines nonetheless. 

“I am, and it was great sex, and then the instant he started talking he turned out to be a dick—insert pun here, blah blah—but that was fine because I never saw him again,” Ariadne interrupted. “Go get him, tiger.”

Arthur raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” said Ariadne. “In your own way.”

“Speaking of,” said Arthur, “except not really. Eames has a newly single friend. Whose ex is a girl, so.”

“So you want to do a casual double not-date thing and use me and my singledom as a ploy to get Eames to spend more social time with you, even though he _drew you ramparts and a moat_ to protect his lunch invitation?” Ariadne ran her hands along the soft fabric of Arthur’s saucer chair, and Arthur was reminded that if his room was a castle, Ariadne was definitely the queen. 

“Yes?” said Arthur. “It’s only been two weeks, so it’d just be a… comfortable, low-key, companion, pal for the evening sort of situation.”

Ariadne snorted. “Yeah, okay.”

“Eames says Yusuf is really—”

“Wait, Eames’s friend is _Yusuf_?” Ariadne interrupted, leaning forward.

“Ye-es,” said Arthur. “I don’t know his last name, but I could—”

“Curly-haired, Indian, super cute, always in lab?” Ariadne pressed.

“Yes,” Arthur said for the third time, his tone decisive at last.

Ariadne threw herself on Arthur’s bed, where he’d tossed his phone an hour earlier in an attempt to stop himself from responding to Eames’s illicit mid-rehearsal texts. Ariadne pushed the phone into Arthur’s hands.

“Text your boy,” she said. “The four of us are going out tomorrow night.”

Arthur opened a new text message, then looked up at Ariadne. “Yusuf?”

“Yusuf,” Ariadne confirmed.

 

As it turned out, Ariadne and Yusuf had been in a class together, second semester first year—Yusuf’s sophomore year—“back when I was awkward and still felt a lingering sense of obligation to obey authority figures.” Mostly what Arthur remembered about that semester—in terms of Ariadne’s love life, that was—was a girl named Camille she was sort of dating. Evidently they’d been dating enough that Ariadne didn’t pursue Yusuf, but not enough that Ariadne hadn’t noticed him and wouldn’t jump on the chance to satisfy her curiosity when he reappeared two and a half years later.

 

“Yusuf doesn’t want Ariadne to think he’s flaky,” Eames announced, walking into Arthur’s room at nine on Saturday night. Eames had played an early evening pick-up game of touch rugby with his old friends from the non-shitty half of the team, and his hair was still damp from the shower. 

“You’re lucky Ariadne’s still narrowing down her scarf options,” Arthur replied. Arthur pointedly did not dress up any more than usual—this was not a date for him, this was him hanging out with Eames while they sort-of-not-really-but-actually set up their friends—but he had changed into his favorite, softest sweater.

Eames flopped onto the bed. (Eames seemed to now operate under the assumption that, even in her absence, the saucer chair belonged to Ariadne.) “Not luck; I could hear the music coming from her room in the hallway, and I know she wouldn’t leave that on if she wasn’t in.”

“Edith Piaf?” Arthur asked.

Eames nodded.

“What were you saying about Yusuf?”

“He doesn’t want her to think he’s flaky, going on a date, or a sort of date, I’ve lost track of what this is supposed to be, to be honest, two weeks after Monica, who—”

“—for the record, you don’t think was good enough for him anyway,” Arthur finished. “Ariadne is not going to slut-shame Yusuf for going to a 24-hour diner with… a friend and two acquaintances a full fourteen days after he was dumped.”

“That’s what I told him,” said Eames. “I said, Yusuf, girls you met as underclassmen in Intro to Intersectional Feminism can only have become _more_ awesome.” He cocked his head. “Maybe that didn’t help with the nerves.”

“Ari thinks he’s cute,” Arthur offered.

“What about you?” Eames winked.

“What?”

“Do you think Yusuf’s cute? Since we’re just killing time here.” In Arthur’s bed, Eames turned on his side, propping up his head with one hand. 

“Um,” said Arthur. “I… guess? I haven’t really thought about it?” _Because every time I’ve seen him, he’s been with you, and when you’re around, you’re the only one whose cuteness I’m paying attention to_ , he thought.

“That makes it easier, when you and your bestie have different types. Unless Yusuf is your type and you follow the she-saw-him-first code,” said Eames, his tone grave.

“Ari’s type is anyone in a Marvel movie,” Arthur said.

“And yours?” Eames asked.

_Now would be a good time to make an entrance_ , Arthur thought at Ariadne, but, as ever, telepathy failed him.

Arthur shrugged. “I’m not really an abstract concepts sort of person.”

“I see,” said Eames, frowning a little.

Before Arthur could attempt to change the subject, Ariadne made her entrance, holding up five different scarves and thrusting them in Eames’s direction.

“Hey,” Arthur objected. “Whose fashion sense is clearly better, mine or his?”

“Yours,” Ariadne assented. “But Eames knows Yusuf, and Yusuf is the goal, so.”

Eames sat up and contemplated the options, even running his fingers along each one to evaluate their texture. “The yellow one, with the bees,” Eames decided.

Ariadne wrapped the chosen scarf around her neck and pivoted toward Arthur. “Acceptable?”

“Very nice,” Arthur assured her.

Ariadne spun on her heel and went to return the rejected scarves to her room.

Yusuf drove them to Dale’s, which had been Arthur and Ariadne’s preferred off-campus, late night food venue since six weeks into their first year, when Ariadne had decided at one a.m. that the only cure for whatever combination of problems was plaguing them at the time—midterms and Arthur’s dumb, newly-ex high school boyfriend and probably PMS—was a milkshake. (And possibly some chicken fingers.)

José raised his eyebrows at the two additions to their party, but merely said, “The usual table?” as he led them toward a booth in the back. He placed the laminated menus on the table and gave Arthur a quick thumbs-up when Eames’s back was turned.

“You guys are regulars here, I take it?” Eames said, slipping into the booth after Arthur. “I’m honored to have been invited.”

Arthur caught Ariadne’s frantic look as she scooted into the seat across from him: _It’s our favorite place! I picked it because we’re comfortable here! What if tonight goes terribly and Dale’s is ruined forever? What if it’s too intimate for a causal not-date?_

_A 24-hour diner is never too intimate_ , Arthur thought back at her, although Ariadne had already turned her head and was smiling at Yusuf, bumping her shoulder into his and leaving them touching. Fake telepathy required eye contact, and besides, Arthur was reconsidering his assertion: between the pair across from him and the warmth of Eames on the cracked pleather bench beside him, 24-hour diners could apparently be plenty intimate.

Clara arrived to take their order. She’d clearly been briefed on the additions to their party, because she contented herself with the tiniest of eyebrow waggles as Eames scanned the menu.

_I’m not on a date! Ariadne is!_ Arthur thought, but to no avail. He should talk to Yusuf about inventing telepathy. Surely he could work out some sort of chemical mind-meld solution.

Arthur and Ariadne ordered milkshakes—strawberry for Arthur, chocolate for Ariadne. Eames announced he would be following their lead and ordered a vanilla milkshake, while Yusuf went for coffee.

“And two orders of fries, please,” said Ariadne.

“It’s not a late-night diner run without fries,” Clara agreed, collecting their menus.

“You’ve got the system down, I see,” Yusuf said.

“The fries here are an _institution_ ,” Ariadne insisted. “Like Sweet Martha’s Cookies.”

Arthur intercepted the confused look Yusuf shot at Eames and intervened. “It’s a Minnesota State Fair thing.”

“A…. state fair?” Yusuf ventured.

Ariadne’s eyes lit up, and the explanation of the Great Minnesota Get-Together lasted until their milkshakes, coffee, and fries arrived, at which point she carefully supervised Eames and Yusuf’s first fry selections, because “As _Pride and Prejudice_ teaches us, while bad first impressions can be overcome, it’s much easier to just do it right the first time.”

“It’s good,” Eames announced before leaning in to drink some of his milkshake.

Ariadne wrinkled her nose as Yusuf lifted his coffee cup to his lips.

“Okay, I am going to pretend that mixing fries and coffee is not a sacrilege, but you need to at least have a little milkshake,” she said, and pushed her glass a few inches toward him.

“Are you sure?” Yusuf asked.

“Very.”

Arthur turned his head just enough to catch Eames’s gaze, then looked away again before he could start laughing. He hoped the gesture came off as, _Is this for real, Ariadne is just plowing over him and he looks very into it_ and not, _Would you like to try some of my strawberry, because vanilla isn’t their best flavor and milkshake-sharing is totally a platonic thing that people who have only known each other for two weeks can do_.

“Yusuf, you have to tell the dry ice milkshake story now,” Eames prompted with a grin.

Yusuf told the story with frequent, expansive hand gestures, and after the second time he nearly hit Ariadne in the nose with a fry, she simply plucked it from his fingers, popped it into her mouth, and tucked the offending hand between her own.

“ _I think it’s officially a date now,_ ” Eames whispered in Arthur’s ear, his hand on Arthur’s upper arm as he leaned close.

Around one-thirty, when they finally decided to leave, Arthur realized that neither one of them had moved away.


	4. Chapter 4

Arthur prided himself on knowing himself well—or at least being honest with himself. He acknowledged that he liked Eames, a _lot_. He acknowledged that he didn’t want Eames stretching out on anybody else’s bed and name-checking their favorite photographers, peppering his speech with “darling” and his glances with winks.

Arthur knew he could continue riding the pining train full steam ahead for the rest of the semester, savoring whatever small intimacies Eames invited, until they inevitably came to some sort of crisis point and Eames said something to disrupt the status quo and Arthur was forced to say, “I don’t do sex,” and by that time they’d gone too far to switch to an alternate, platonic track and the train would derail completely and go crashing off the side of a mountain.

Or Arthur could spare himself the extended heartbreak and confront Eames now, when they could still signal the switchman to direct them to the correct, platonic friendship set of tracks.

Mid-afternoon on Sunday, Eames came up to his room, ostensibly to work on homework, but really to grin at Arthur and flip his pen around his fingers and in short be far more interesting than Arthur’s French essay. 

“Okay,” said Arthur abruptly, breaking a short lull in their conversation. He saved his document, closed his laptop, and adjusted his chair so he could face Eames while resting his arms over the backrest.

“Okay?” Eames said. He must have noticed the seriousness of Arthur’s tone, because he sat up. The motion disturbed Arthur’s comforter, rumpling it a bit, and Arthur stared at the new folds for perhaps a beat longer than was really warranted.

“I might be misreading things,” Arthur began, because it was always possible that Eames always lounged in a proprietary fashion on his co-RAs’ beds, and Arthur didn’t want to sound like a completely self-centered ass as he attempted to save their friendship.

“You’re not,” said Eames at once.

Arthur started a bit at that, because he had a whole speech planned out and Eames had interrupted him not even a full sentence in—and who was he kidding? That was extraordinarily poor planning on his part, if he actually had imagined getting through the whole monologue without any input from Eames.

“Okay,” said Arthur again. “I’m not going to have sex with you.”

A beat, then: “Shit, I’m so sorry, dar—Arthur,” said Eames, all in a rush. “I’ve been, um, too much, haven’t I? I’m sorry, I don’t know why I thought I could just crash in and start taking over your life and I didn’t even _ask_ , and I hope we can still get along because of the whole RA thing, but also for Ariadne and Yusuf, if you think that wouldn’t be too much trouble—” Eames drew a deep breath “—You should just know that you’re really fantastic and anybody would be lucky to have you and. Yeah. Sorry again.”

“I wanted you to crash in and start taking over my life,” said Arthur.

Eames cocked his head. “But… you want me to stop trying to flirt with you. Which is fine!” he added, still speaking quickly. “Friends, and all.”

Arthur swallowed and straightened his shoulders. “I don’t mind you crashing in and taking over my life. I don’t mind you flirting with me. I wouldn’t mind sharing milkshakes with you at two in the morning. I wouldn’t mind holding your hand or giving you good-luck kisses before your performances. I just don’t do sex. And most people… the people I have historically… anyway, that tends to be a deal breaker.” 

Eames studied him closely for a full five seconds before saying, “I think I could live with that.”

“I—wait, really?” said Arthur. Hope was threatening to bloom in his chest (in his fingers, his toes, the tips of his ears), so he narrowed his eyes.

“I would love to go out with you,” said Eames. “Which is… what I think you’re suggesting?” Arthur nodded. “And I would never want to pressure you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with.” Eames’s eyebrows creased together. “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel differently.”

“Just to be clear,” said Arthur, before he lost his nerve and agreed to Eames’s agreement of his own damn proposition and ended up dooming them to train wreck status down the line. “This isn’t like a… thing where we go on a few dates and then you convince me that I really do want sex. I’m not prudish or repressed or struggling with internalized homophobia. There’s a bit of a gray area between, um, pre-show kisses and sex that I’d be interested in exploring with you, but nothing we do together is ever going to end with either one of us having an orgasm.”

“Understood,” said Eames. He hesitated, then said, “May I ask why? Not that you have to answer, not that it’s really any of my business, but I’m—well, curious. If you’re willing to answer.”

Arthur rested his head on his forearms. “I am the worst RA ever.”

“Now you’ve lost me,” said Eames.

Arthur lifted his head and forced himself to meet Eames’s eyes. Eames’s gaze was warm, soft, maybe a little amused. Arthur could live with that. “We’re supposed to have our shit together, aren’t we? Know everything there is to know about ourselves, have a handle on every aspect of our identities, so we can enthusiastically guide and encourage and—you know, all the rest of it—everybody else?”

“I must have missed that training session, because that’s not part of any job description _I_ was given,” said Eames.

“You know what I mean,” said Arthur. “It’s ridiculous that I’m twenty-one years old and purporting to mentor people ever so slightly younger than me, and it’s more than a bit hypocritical of me to assist people with their own… identity crises when I’m still figuring out my own.”

“Darling,” said Eames, his voice quiet. “The punch line?”

“I might be asexual,” said Arthur. “Maybe. Grayace? I haven’t really settled on a label. I haven’t even decided if having a label for this part of me is at all necessary or important to me. Which is a terrible example to set for people for whom the label _is_ really important.”

“Thank you for trusting me with that,” said Eames, again in that same soft tone. He tilted his head. “You wanna come over here and hold my hand and listen to me complain about my co-star?”

“You’re really okay with this?” Arthur blurted.

There was _no way_ Eames could be okay with this. Eames was—and Arthur meant this with all the respect in the world—probably the definition of “healthy sex drive, male 20-25.”

“Am I going to take a second at some point to mourn the to-be-forever-unrealized prospect of touching your dick, which I’m sure is very lovely? Yeah,” said Eames. “But I would much rather be with you, and never sleep with you, than _not_ be with you at all. I’ll survive.” Eames winced. “I don’t really mean that. That’s not the right word. It’s not some immeasurable sacrifice, I’m not a martyr, it’s not a _burden_. I would very much like to date you.”

Arthur slipped out of his chair and onto the bed next to Eames. Eames held perfectly still, only turning his head the slightest bit to keep Arthur in his sight.

“I’m going to kiss you now, if that’s okay,” said Arthur. “And then you can complain to me about your co-star.”

“That’s definitely okay,” Eames said. His voice was no more than a whisper.

Arthur put a hand on the back of Eames’s neck and leaned in, pressing their lips together. One kiss. There, a better angle. Two kisses.

He pulled back and let his hand trail down Eames’s arm before twining their fingers together.

“About that co-star,” Arthur prompted.


	5. Chapter 5

On Monday night, Arthur kind of wanted to pull the high school move where the boyfriend sits in on rehearsal/practice/whatever activities people do that are not sports or theater, but Eames said the director was one unexpected development away from inciting a civil war between her and the various crew heads, so for the sake of Eames’s future stardom, Arthur did his homework in his room as usual.

“And I suppose you’re not allowed in lab because you haven’t gone through safety training,” Arthur added, after summing up the intra-crew drama to Ariadne for at least the third time.

“What lab?” Ariadne asked. She had one ear bud in; the other was dangling over a textbook.

“Yusuf’s,” said Arthur.

Ariadne raised one thoroughly skeptical eyebrow. “And… why would I want to sit in a lab while he does important lab things and I do important textbook-y things? Not exactly the recipe for productivity, and not exactly an ideal environment for… other things.” When Arthur didn’t immediately reply, she added, “One of our beds will be waiting when we’ve both got an hour to spare at the same time.”

“But,” said Arthur.

“He’s super cool and on the one hand, go first-year me for spotting him and recognizing this, and on the other hand, first-year me was not ready to even try to date someone as awesome as him. He’s.” She paused and took the other ear bud out. “Chill. Funny? But also chill. And also-also just coming out of another relationship, so I think we’re going to take the time to attempt to do this right. Which, for us, can’t happen in the _less than forty-eight hours since we went to Dale’s_ ,” she finished.

“Time is a construct,” said Arthur. “Also relative.”

“Please, rub it in that you’ve taken more physics than me,” said Ariadne.

Arthur unplugged his laptop from the charger and plopped both the laptop and himself onto the bed.

“I know you’re going through separation anxiety,” Ariadne said. “I am aware you would like for Eames to not be in rehearsal so he can come here and have lots of not-sex with you.”

Arthur frowned. “I want Eames to be in rehearsal. This play sounds brilliant, and he’s friends with the AD, who is apparently also brilliant.”

“Join set crew for whatever show he does next semester,” said Ariadne. “Automatic all-access rehearsal pass.”

“I have capstone next semester,” said Arthur, pulling a face. “I don’t know that I’ll have the time.”

“So don’t join set crew.” Ariadne shrugged and went back to reading her textbook.

Arthur tried to focus on his Science and Technology assignment, but then his Plowden poster caught his eye and he remembered Eames coming back to his room last week, acknowledging his disappearing act, and, sort of, in a way, never leaving. Not even when Arthur gave his I-am-the-worst-RA-ever speech. Arthur let his head fall onto the pillow. 

“He’s just,” Arthur said, and then stopped, because Eames wasn’t _just_ anything. Eames was _so much_. “We got dinner at the Student Center last night, and we held hands, and we kissed goodnight after, and we’re never going to have sex, and it’s _so nice_. Anybody else looking in would think, why are these people acting like thirteen-year-olds, but it’s _so nice_ , Ari.” Arthur was half laughing, it was so nice. He didn’t think you got to have things, people, relationships, this nice, when you didn’t really know what you were doing, exactly what you wanted.

“I’m really happy for you,” Ariadne began.

“But you and Yusuf are going to have the greatest relationship of all time?” Arthur cut in.

“No,” said Ariadne. “I’m pretty sure you and Eames have that in the bag. Which is great, because he’s a theater dude and theater dudes are destined for epic things. I don’t need _the greatest relationship of all time_. Honestly, that sounds like a lot of work. A lot of energy I would rather spend—you know, a lot of energy I would rather _not_ spend. Sleep is good. I’d like _a_ relationship, a relationship that’s a good one and the best one _I_ could have, at this particular moment, in my particular life.”

“So that shared milkshake at Dale’s used up all your grand gestures?” Arthur asked.

“I’m going to make you re-take the Five Love Languages quiz,” Ariadne warned. “I don’t need grand gestures. I just like gestures, period. And clarity. And, yeah, I was feeling like starting with the tiniest bit of a bang, but now I’m going to settle in and see what can happen when a relationship isn’t high-energy all the time.”

“I’m really happy for you,” Arthur said, smiling.

“Yeah, I know.” She kicked at the bed leg closest to her, and Arthur felt the bed shudder a little beneath him.

“Come to Dale’s with us this weekend?” Arthur asked. “You can make Yusuf order his own milkshake.”

“Sure,” said Ariadne. “I want to see who calls Eames your boyfriend first—José or Clara.”

They both pondered this for a moment, then said in unison, “José.”

“Finish your homework and I’ll help you break into Eames’s room before he gets back from rehearsal,” Ariadne offered.

“As an RA, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” said Arthur.

“But you’ll follow me through the window anyway,” said Ariadne.

Arthur did.

 

By approximately ten-thirty p.m. on Friday night, after nearly a week of intensive data collection, Arthur had decided that the best part about Eames—the best physical part, that was—was his hands. Specifically, Eames’s hands in Arthur’s hands, or on the small of his back, or on his hips as they kissed (but only a little), or on his stomach as Arthur sat between his legs, Arthur’s back against Eames’s chest, while they sat in Eames’s bed watching a movie.

Confirmed: Eames’s warmth could seep through two layers of t-shirt.

Hands: officially not overrated.

Eames kissed the back of his neck, and Arthur tilted his head to the side to show his appreciation.

“Good?” Eames asked.

“Good.” Arthur stroked his fingers over Eames’s hands. They were good hands.

Eames continued to kiss his neck, lingering now on one side, now nosing at his spine.

“You’re so quiet,” said Eames, a whisper in his ear.

“Movie,” said Arthur.

“ _The Artist_ ,” Eames objected.

“Just… relishing. Luxuriating? Savoring?” Arthur lifted one of Eames’s hands and brought it to his lips, kissed it. The palm, the knuckle of his index finger, the bony back of it. Further confirmation: Eames’s hands, good. Kissable.

There was a relieved kind of joy, a joyous kind of relief, in letting Eames touch him in the ways Arthur wanted to be touched, and Eames wanted to touch, and knowing Eames knew of the line in the sand, and trusting that the line would never be held against him.

(This was, ultimately, the difference between Eames and the ex-high school boyfriend who was one-third of the impetus behind the first Dale’s excursion: in regards to physical intimacy, David thought they were meant to progress in a linear fashion, that they were supposed to progress _toward_ something, that there was an end goal—namely, a variety of ways of reaching orgasm. That after a few weeks of lingering at one base, they ought to move on to the next. At eighteen, Arthur hadn’t had the confidence to say, no, never. He hadn’t really been sure it was _no, never_ —they were still both so young, couldn’t they wait, what was this absurd ‘want’ and ‘need’ David seemed to feel?—so their relationship was strung together on ‘not nows’ until their mutual frustration with the other, not to mention the fact that their colleges were an eight-hour drive apart, won out. To be fair, maybe the real difference wasn’t so much between David and Eames, but the Arthur he had been then, and the Arthur he was now.)

“That’s all right then,” said Eames. “Just wanted to check in.”

“Is this the part where you say ‘louder’ and I start screaming your name and we render everyone on your hallway profoundly uncomfortable?” Arthur asked.

“Something like that,” said Eames. “Except not at all.”

“Mm,” said Arthur. “Yes, Eames. More of the same, Eames. Please, Eames.”

Eames kissed the top of his ear.

“Dale’s tomorrow, with Yusuf and Ari?” said Arthur. “Except this time, please, for the love of God, do not order a vanilla milkshake.”

“Insert innuendo here,” Eames chimed in.

“Right,” said Arthur. “Strawberry or chocolate. Because they are the superior milkshake flavors at Dale’s. _After_ you have tried them, you may return to vanilla if you must.”

“So generous of you,” said Eames. He hugged Arthur to him a little tighter.

They watched about thirty seconds of the movie. It was so _comfortable_ —Arthur was so comfortable, here, in a bed with a boy, with Eames. Who would have thought? One Netflix and chill, coming right up, heavy on the Netflix, with a nice side of snuggles and a light garnish of kisses, hold the orgasms, thank you. 

“Are you good?” Arthur asked. “Is this… good?”

“You know, I have never once had someone say I was too quiet in bed,” said Eames. “All good here, sweetheart.”

“Yeah?”

“Dating Arthur: ten out of ten, would like to continue,” said Eames. “My baby first-years ship us, you know.” 

“The ones who came to all of our joint office hours this week?” Arthur said.

“All of our office hours were joint office hours this week,” said Eames.

“I know,” said Arthur. “I oversaw the coordination of our schedules and sent out the announcement emails.”

“They’re very protective of you,” said Eames. “Which is a little unfair, considering that they’re _my_ baby first-years.”

“I got them through Orientation,” said Arthur.

“You got my ducklings to _imprint_ on you. How unjust. How sneaky.” Eames emphasized his point by burrowing his nose into Arthur’s shoulder.

“They weren’t _your_ ducklings during Orientation. They were supposed to be Nash’s.”

They took a shared moment to shudder at this prospect.

“You realize we’re the dorm mum and dad now,” said Eames.

“Dad and dad,” Arthur corrected.

“Dad and dad,” Eames allowed. “We’ll have to make Christmas cards.”

“Watch the movie, Eames,” said Arthur, but he shifted just enough to give Eames a quick kiss on the cheek.

The corners of Eames’s lips tilted up into a smile, and Arthur wanted to kiss that, both ends of the smile, only then he was smiling too hard to kiss properly. Eames took that at his cue to kiss Arthur’s dimples. Arthur twisted around a little more; one of Eames’s hands (his good, good hands) reached up to cup Arthur’s face.

“No one told me I’d get a signing bonus,” Eames teased, brushing his thumb along Arthur’s cheek before letting his hand fall back to Arthur’s waist.

Arthur wrinkled his nose. “Not a signing bonus.” 

“Oh really?” said Eames. “How would you classify yourself, then?” 

“The best co-RA you’ll ever have,” said Arthur. “Your introduction to Dale’s. Your NPR informant.” 

“PBS defender,” Eames chimed in. 

“Podcast partner.”

“Fellow photography admirer.” 

“Boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend.” 


End file.
